Dionne: Hidden costs of the GOP's deficit two-step

By E.J. Dionne

Monday

Oct 22, 2018 at 12:01 AM

A truly gifted con artist is someone who pulls off the same scam again and again and keeps getting away with it.

Say what you will about Republicans and conservatives: Their audacity when it comes to deficits and tax cuts is something to behold, and they have been running the same play since the passage of the Reagan tax cuts in 1981.

Republicans shout loudly about how terrible deficits are when Democrats are in power — even in cases when deficits are essential to pulling the nation out of economic catastrophe, as was the case at the beginning of President Obama's first term.

But when the GOP takes control, its legions cheerfully embrace Dick Cheney's law and send deficits soaring. Recall what President George W. Bush's vice president said in 2002 justifying the 2003 tax cuts: "Reagan proved deficits don't matter."

Deficits don't matter if they would impede handing out tax benefits to corporations and the affluent. But they put us "on the brink of national bankruptcy" and threaten "a debt crisis," as House Speaker Paul Ryan put it in 2011, when Democrats want to finance programs for the middle class or the poor.

Republicans know one other thing: Their deception will work as long as neutral arbiters — in the media and think tanks along with those who genuinely care about deficits — fail to call it out.

And for now, the Republicans' absurd claim that their $1.5 trillion corporate tax cut last year had nothing to do with the rising deficit has encountered considerable derision.

But the real test will come when Republicans lose power. Does anyone doubt that with Democrats in charge, the promiscuous tax cutters will be reborn yet again as fiscal scolds?

If this were just about politics and had no serious consequences to the country, we might write off the trickery as part of our now normal dysfunction. But the underlying effect of the GOP's deficit two-step poses an even greater hazard than the deficits themselves.

Here is a capitalist rating service with an interest in capitalism's success warning that economic inequality is bad for the system itself.

So here is my plea to the honest deficit hawks out there: Please face up to how right-wing policies are doubly damaging to national solvency. They raise deficits by reducing revenues. But they also endanger us by aggravating inequalities that themselves imperil sustainable budgets and a growing economy. This is worse than a swindle. It's a dangerous mistake.